This is the parrot Kea using a ball shaped tool at the Multi Access Box. The kea, a New Zealand parrot, and the New Caledonian crow are members of the two most intelligent avian families. Researchers from the Department of Cognitive Biology of the University of Vienna investigated their problem solving abilities as well as their innovative capacities. They are publishing two new studies – one in cooperation with members of the Behavioral Ecology Research Group in Oxford – in the scientific journals PLoS ONE and Biology Letters.

An outbreak of Escherichia coli causing a severe illness called hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS) began in Germany on May 2, 2011 and has killed more than 20 people and sickened more than 2,000. The organism causing the outbreak has been identified as a strain of E. coli O104:H4 that produces a Shiga toxin and causes an illness similar to infection with E. coli O157:H7. Two isolates from this outbreak have been sequenced. Both strains, TY-2482 and LB226692, have been annotated and are now available from Virginia Bioinformatics Institute's (VBI's) Pathosystems Resource Integration Center (PATRIC, patricbrc.org), which is funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.